Friday, March 31, 2006
who's the birthday boy...
our day at the navy pier, before we had even heard of kimberly gordon, but not before we had become a supporter of the arts--cheerleading arts, that is.
we’re number 1! we can’t be number 2! we’re gonna kick the %$#@ out of you! goooooo team!!! our first anniverversary was romantic and enticing, although the moma was mind-numbing and dreary. and a rip-off. but we are determined to keep museums alive. after all--our 5th official date was at the memorable, venerable getty. where i was first acquainted with ol’ marble eye.
after which, we had our first boggle tournament where i first kicked your ENTIRE ass in boggle, to be followed quickly by all other asundry word games. You’re GNAUGHTY!
A poor loser shows his true colors...a keeps a smile on his face, even after his ENTIRE ass i kicked in basketball--for the first of many many times. Ouch!
All is peaceful after a good meal. Or do i mean goody meal...nothing like a nice big omelette with a side of hash browns, pancakes, homestyle potatoes, a fluffy waffle, and a biiig glass of orange juice, freshly squeezed, please! oh! and some coffee, no sugar, only cream for my good man. cheers!
we went back to cafe santorini, where we first had the post-museum dinner, the notorious, glorious “GNAUGHTY” dinner. and here we are, posing in front of the pasadena plaza--the food was tasty as always--a little spicy, a little sweet, and really delightfully nutty..and so of course, is my man. Graaawr!
my 29th birthday in san francisco, the last of my mid-20’s. we had sushi and clubbing--raw fish and then raw rhythmic abdominal thrusting.
mwah! a big congratulatory kiss for just being me--the smart, sassy, sexy, sophisticated, stunning me. thanks. ‘ppreciate it. oh, by the way, happy birthday, schmoop.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
bellagio gardens
complete with large frog…
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
weirdo car
we were walking back down the strip after riding the rollercoaster in new york, new york, and this truck in front of us was apparently so bored, stuck in traffic, that it was playing tricks with its cab… i was laughing so hard when i saw it.... enjoy!!
Monday, March 27, 2006
taken on a walk down the vegas strip
Sunday, March 26, 2006
at excalibur
sara, heather, kathy, jill, and me and the cut-off head of a dragon at excalibur
kat, me, kirstin, heather, sara, jill, and shauna
so we were all there to hang out with kirstin for her bachelorette party… it was neat cuz all the girls were all cool - i hadn’t met 3 of them before but everyone was nice and we all co-existed in the same hotel suite beautifully =) and i haven’t seen kirstin in forever, and it was neat to be able to hang out with jill since she’s moved back to the bay area, and also get the chance to meet shauna, and heather, and sara, and of course, to spend time with kat. even though the drive home in traffic was a b****, it gave us time to catch up with each other and just “gossip” about our lives and the goings on in our friends’ lives. oh, and also to hear about the groom-to-be, and it seems like they’ll have a very happy marriage.
anyways, since what happens in vegas stays in vegas, i’ll just say that we had fun =) and we did… the girls were really fun to hang out with and it was definitely the best vegas trip i’ve ever had. that’s not really -that- hard a title to earn, seeing how i’ve hardly ever been there in the past, but it was pretty much everything it should’ve been, and it was good.
i do have to confess, though, that i enjoyed sitting at the poker tables alot… it was my first time gambling there, and boy, was it fun! it’s a good thing for me that i don’t go there very often… and also that i have a ton of other activities that i enjoy so that’s not all that i do everyday… but yeah… it was definitely fun.
Friday, March 24, 2006
having dinner with "monty"
9 chickweed lane is one of the comics that i follow every day… it’s mainly about edda, a young girl who until recently was a student at a catholic high school run by nuns, and her mom, who was a professor. yesterday’s comic sorta captures a sentiment that i’ve felt that i don’t think many people share. both of the guys shown are ministers, and they’re having a heart to heart about what it means to know God.
so the pastor refers to God as ‘monty’, but i think that’s just an extension of my idea - God should be someone i know by name, someone i want to “talk to” at the dinner table, not someone who i make petitions of throughout the day. i know, i know, multiple friends of mine have said that the faulty assumption behind my premise is that i want to treat God like a person, and not like He’s God, but i still think that there’s something to that - i should want to be as close to Him as that and i shouldn’t let the fact that He’s omnipotent and omnipresent and omniscient put distance between me and Him, but instead it should draw me closer to Him.
in my eyes, that’s done by “having dinner” with Him…
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
i love food!!
so i was downloading pictures from my camera, and i saw this theme… it was always us gathered around food! hahaha… yup… so here’s a few pics from the past few days, usually after we’re done eating, ready to enter into our post-eating food coma =)
on saturday night, rod and colleen showed up at maria’s, where they unexpectedly ran into…
shelia and chris, who had invited me out to dinner with them. i was there with the two of them and ended up calling…
rita, who placed an order over the phone with me, and then showed up with jason and gavin.
on sunday, it was labuni family day at lotus garden, which is where…
auntie and uncle celebrated their 31st wedding anniversary.
today was tuesday night dinner and it was all girls night! that’s an amazing feat =) plus all four roomies were back in the same room again! yay! and around food…
such is the theme of my life… =)
Monday, March 20, 2006
happy Sabbath
i started this post on Sabbath but didn’t get further than the title, but i’m gonna keep it even though it’s monday by now because, hey, it’s the topic of what i wanna talk about. and so here goes:
confession #1: i haven’t been going to church lately.
confession #2: this has been a conscious decision.
there are many and multiple reasons for my decision to stop going to church, but perhaps the easiest one to talk about is the fact that i’ve been wondering on how to work on my relationship with God. and i suppose i’m rebelling against what i’ve been taught - to read the Bible, pray every day, and go to church every Sabbath. those things are fine and wonderful, but at the point when you feel like you’re floundering in your relationship with God (and let’s face it - everyone goes through this, not just with God, but every relationship has its ups and downs), reading the Bible or showing up to church just doesn’t cut it for me.
i mean, i’ve heard people tell me, “you wanna get close to God? read the Bible! it’s his letter to you!!” and so i open the Bible with the question ‘how do i get closer to God?’ and i read about God visiting adam, or abraham, or moses, etc, and all i can think is, dude, this is cruel - here i am reading about people who had relationships with God. i mean, these people NEVER read the Bible (i don’t think they went to church at 11 am every saturday morning, either). and their relationship with God is the example given to me in the Bible. and i’m told to read the Bible as my way to grow closer to God. and i get so distracted by the fact that they have a real relationship with God, but my fix for my relationship is to read about their relationship with God.
that’s like saying i don’t know who my dad is, and every tells me to get to know him by reading his letters to my mom. sure, it might give me insight to what a great guy he is. and it might make me feel like i know who he is. but does that mean i have a relationship with him? if i were to accidently run into him somewhere, would i be able to hang out with him and have a great conversation? maybe… but it also could be awkward because the fact remains that i don’t know him, i just know about him.
likewise, i think that going to church is good fellowship, and that it builds relationships with people who also have relationships with God. but once again that’s the second degree effect - spending time with people who know the one God that i want to spend time with. i want to build my relationship with God, not with the church people! and that doesn’t mean i don’t appreciate them or what they can do for me or what i can do for them just by fellowshipping with them. it just means that i want to work on my relationship directly with God.
and so i’ve cut out all the extras. i don’t think there’s any point in repairing and patching up a house that simply just needs a solid foundation put under it. i think that it’d’ve been easy to continue to live my Christian life thinking that everything was ok because i do all the right “mandatory” things. but instead of treating the symptoms by working on my Bible-reading habits or my church attendance, i’d like instead to go to the root of the problem and work on me and God.
to be honest, i miss church a little bit. i’m hoping that missing church will spur me to fix my relationship with God faster.
but this last Sabbath, i stopped by after church to see who i could talk to and i ended up just blurting out “i’ve stopped going to church” and then i burst into tears after that confession. i know and i realize i have lotsa baggage not just about church but about prayer and reading the Bible and expectations and a whole lot more that i need to work through, but i think the best thing i got outta the whole talk was that I DO HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD. it might not be the way i’ve always been taught it needs to be, but there is no doubt that God works in my life. He took care of me when i didn’t know what to do about japan, and He takes care of me now. and His influence in my life is evident to other people.
even this not going to church thing worked out into a small miracle - the church paid for some equipment that they didn’t have in their budget, so they didn’t know how they were gonna pay for it. i went to gym night that same week and ended up giving my last two months’ tithe and offering there, and then i found out that my two months’ checks covered the exact amount of the equipment they bought! if i had turned in the money at church, the praise band wouldn’t have had a chance to see God provide for their needs. and all of this happens at the point when i think i’m the furthest from God, yet i know that He can still use me. i’m not trying to brag, but i think it’s amazing that He can still work miracles in our lives and this is something that i need to remember even when i feel far away from Him.
anyways, this has been me… this is what i’ve been struggling with that caused me to write this post a month ago, and it’s taken longer than that time to finally be able to write something about it.
i’m hoping that this will start the catharthis that needs to happen for me to finally have peace about all of these things, but for right now, i’m just happy that i’m not as far away from God as i thought i was. thank you for that....
Friday, March 17, 2006
playing pool
so… we were s’posed to go bowling with the lljapanese church last night and i invited people as instructed, and so we were all there at 8, ready to go “cosmic bowling” at the AMF lanes which -didn’t- have cosmic bowling but did have full lanes and no openings, so we went to the arcade in the back to pass time while waiting for lanes, and played pool instead. we ended up just going down the street to ‘the pool club’ to play real billiards in a place with real music and enough space to pull your cue back when you wanted to hit balls on the side =) hahaha… but it was really nice to be there with so many friends playing 8-ball or cut-throat. i sorta felt guilty for leaving the group, especially since we took so many with us, but we had fun just playing and taking forever to end our games cuz we weren’t very good, but it was still fun.
rita was on a roll, when she was taking her time setting up her shot jason would playfully rush her to “hit the ball, rita!!!” and i’d take a picture, both of which she didn’t like, but everytime that happened she would sink an amazing shot! it was crazy!
anyways, it was a nice to go out on a thursday night and see so many friends there…
snowboarding again!
this is probably my last trip with the school… and while i love the ability to go boarding as part of my work, i’m relieved that this phase of field trips is almost over. it’s alot of responsibility and time to bring students up the mountain, and to make the most of their money we have to meet at school at 7 to make it up the mountain by the time they open, and then we have to stay till we basically get kicked off the mountain, and i probably won’t be home till dark. it’ll be fun, for sure, but it’ll also be a long day.
pray for me i’ll make it through the day!
Monday, March 13, 2006
belated birthday gifts for my mom
my mom rocks!
her birthday was last month but she was in the philippines ‘gallivanting’ with her high school classmates, so i went out to visit her this weekend to spend some ‘birthday time’ with her. in addition to eating with her, i took her out for manis and pedis:
however, i think she ended up buying me more ’pasalubong‘ from the philippines than i bought her for her birthday! in addition to the cultural-hat-that-looks-like-a-bell that she’s wearing in the top picture, she got me an outfit from the philippines, a “mestiza saya” just like i requested! i always enjoy the cultural outfits and i’ve never owned one of these butterfly sleeve ones, so she got me this great barong style one (and she said it was the most expensive present she bought at a whopping 750 pesos! ($15!!)):
it’s actually a blouse and a skirt, and the blouse flares at the bottom… but it’s still nifty cool! my mom just laughs at me and wonders why i would ever wanna wear an outfit like this but i’ve always loved dressing up in cultural garb and i look for opportunities to wear stuff like this - international day at japanese church, filipino day at filipino church, and even on halloween i’ll dress up with whatever national costume i have!
i had fun hanging out with her pampering ourselves. both of us never ever get manicures or pedicures so this was a real treat! happy belated birthday, mom!
Sunday, March 12, 2006
weird visitors
i’ve been amused by what brings people to my friends’ blogs, since “italian haircut fetish” searches bring readers to BRY, and i know that camacho.tv has had their share of weird search results… but until recently, i only noticed that people would google “kimi puen” to find the link to my page, and someone even searches for “kimi puen net” to find my page. as if it would be that hard to remember/type in “kimi.puen.net” into the location bar… but some people just prefer to google my name instead.
however, recently, i’ve been noticing weird searches resulting in what i would think would be disappointed visitors. i mean, someone who searched for “xanga basketball “fouled out”“ wouldn’t have found a xanga site but just my blog with a couple entries about basketball. i briefly mentioned that i had run into ed CABANATAN last week, and some time ago i had written “eewwwwww” which was apparently what someone was searching for. the weirdest one so far, though, has been someone who looked for “baby kimi needs her diaper change photos” and somehow came to my website. i’m sure i’ve said all those words at one time or another, but not in that particular order.... and so i have no idea what this person is looking for… but i’m pretty sure it’s not my site!
weird, ain’t it?
EDIT: so apparently i’m also #91 in the yahoo search for “meg ryan’s apartment in the movie you’ve got mail". what possesses someone to google that string of words and then browse all the way to the 91st entry barely related to that?
scion party at mountain high!
laurie msg’d me last week and told me that scion & kroq were having a scion party at mtn high and that they’d give away free lift tickets if you drove up in one, so this past friday i headed on out there after work and got two free lift tickets! we started boarding and then took a break when the snow picked up and headed inside the lodge, and then we found out they were giving away these scion towels, bags, and beanies (which was SO helpful because i had forgotten mine that day, so it came in handy!). i went back to get another beanie, thinking that i could bring it back for perry, since he couldn’t make it up the mountain with me… and then also picked up more towels, and the dude was getting ready to put them away so he just gave me a handful of ‘em, and i ended up with 12! hahah… i LOVE free stuff! silly, huh?
they also gave away snowboards and stuff like that, but apparently i had missed the majority of the party during the day. they still had a dance off for the last two boards that they were giving away. these two dudes were the winners - the guy in the blue shirt was a one armed guy who worked at mtn high but he did some breakdancing moves with his one arm, and that was cool! the asian dude also did breakdancing moves even though he was really big and i think people just like to see guys do moves that they don’t think they should be able to. =) i’ll try to post the videos that i took sometime soon…
by the time johnie, jade, and i made it back outside the snow had calmed down and visibility came back, so we were able to enjoy the powder. i even went through the half pipe several times and made it up the side high enough to jump out of it… but i avoided most o’ the jumps cuz they were still icy. besides the jumps, though, the rest of the mountain was beautiful powder! it sucked driving home for 2 1/2 hours, but it was definitely a fun night and i got to board for free and snag all of this cool stuff =)
Thursday, March 09, 2006
oh basketball, how i have missed you!
i’ve been on a self-imposed hiatus from playing basketball cuz of my ankles - i didn’t know if i was truly injured or not and i knew that when i played basketball my ankles would hurt more, so i was trying to stay off of it. but ever since i got the ok from the doctor (no breaks, no fractures, nothing wrong at all, woot!!!), i’ve been allowing myself to be more active. i’d been promising to play basketball for a while now but i kept on wimping out cuz i was afraid of hurting when running, or when trying to make a hard cut and switching directions.... plus, there’s always more chance of injury running amongst people, instead of stayin on my own side of the net like in volleyball. at any rate, i hadn’t really played basketball since the summer league.
so i was extremely excited to jump on the court last night - i actually thought i might’ve gone home early instead of playing, but after a short dinner break around 10:30, i had more energy to play more. and i had so much fun!
i made several layups due to the wonderful teammates i had who were very encouraging and kept feeding me the ball… and while playing defense i stole the ball from the point guard and made a fast break - which would be the first time i’ve done that! hahaha… yup, my first steal/fast break/lay up ever! that was pretty neat. i was able to force several turnovers from the other team and i scored several other shots which made me proud =) hahaha… oh, and rebounds! rebounds were fun…
anyways, i just had a blast! i’m totally sore today but it’s the good kinda sore, and i guess i’m just hyped that i played a decent game (three in a row, actually, and we won all of ‘em!) and that my ankles didn’t deter from playing… oooh, andi asked stevedoy & chadski to check out my swing when i hit in volleyball, and they’re helping me improve there =) hahaha… i’m really just enjoying this sports thing right now! makin’ a comeback =)
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
bachelorette's reunion
here we are! all four of us in the same locale… that hasn’t happened in ages! i live with rita and i talk to kat fairly regularly, but it was really nice for me to see shelia again, and i know it’s also been a long time since the other three have seen each other and been able to catch up, and i just enjoyed having everybody catch up with each other… sharing stories, relationships, troubles, and insights, and just being able to chill together…
last night reminded me of all the good times we’ve had together!